HP VA7400 running Oracle

[Ken Valentine]

Looking for general feedback on experiences using HP VA7400 series running Oracle (24x7), such as failure rates, data loss, recovery issues, etc. using AutoRaid??
How are the redundancy groups utilized with respect to Oracle data files, control files, redologs , archive logs, etc?? Is anyone using JBODs for logging and control files in addition to VA??

Is anyone running development and production of the same VA7400??

Any information on use of business copy for DB backups??

[Vincent Fleming · Accepted solution]

I'll leave the failure rates, data loss, recovery issues to customers to answer... but I can tell you a bit about Oracle and backup:

A VA7400 has 2 redundancy groups (every other drive). RG1 is controlled by Controller 1 (MC/1), and RG2 is controlled by controller 2 (MC/2). When LUNs are created, you will specify which RG to place the LUN on. This will define which controller is your preferred path as described above. Use the redundant controller for your PVLink.

With Oracle, place your dataspaces and indices on one RG, and the logs on the other. This will increase your performance. Use as few LUNs as makes sense for your DB - more LUNs will not increase performance. For example, use one LUN for dataspaces, one LUN for Indices, one LUN for redo logs, and one LUN for archive logs.

I can't think of a reason why you couldn't run both production and development on the same VA, but... you probably don't want to for performance reasons.

Business Copy VA has been integrated with OmniBack and NetBackup by HP as part of ZDB (Zero-Downtime Backup). Look on hp.com for some info on ZDB solutions.

Good luck!